The Critical Compass Podcast - Boghossian vs. Bindel - Self-Defence or Victim-Blaming？｜ A Critical Compass Discussion

00:00:00.000 And that's where she constantly discounts, if somebody watches through this, Peter advocates for all these other deterrents and or situational awareness and or talking somebody down.

00:00:14.600 Like he doesn't discount them. It's not like he's suggesting that somebody just punches their way out of every situation. But if it really came to it, that last line of defense, like no other option, either you do something or you don't do something.

00:00:32.840 Like if something has a 10% better outcome, you would do it. You would, you would include that. Like, wouldn't that be a net benefit?

00:00:43.860 Peter Boghossian, friend of the channel. He's not. Future friend, a future friend of the channel. He has liked a couple of our tweets. So that's, that's good enough to start.

00:01:11.000 Yeah. Uh, he, uh, I think last week, maybe a little over a week ago, but it was four weeks ago. Whoops. He, uh, he had, did an interview, uh, with, uh, Cara Dansky and in that interview, he, uh, they kind of had a portion of the conversation where Cara Dansky had said she was talking about as a woman, her, her general level, uh,

00:01:41.000 of, uh, kind of distrust and fearfulness of, of, you know, in any given, at any given time in a social situation, a social situation regarding men, uh, you know, the, the, the possibility of being attacked or, or, or that sort of thing.

00:01:53.680 Um, and so Peter asked her to give a, on a scale of one to 10, how fearful she was. And she said nine, nine out of 10. And so he said, so he basically the, he went into a little kind of, um, uh, um, Socratic questioning of her, of, of, of that, you know, to kind of suss out the roots of that, that statement.

00:02:18.120 And he had asked her what, like, what she had done to mitigate those fears. If, if, if truly you feel a nine out of 10 fearfulness of this certain thing and you have not done. So as it turns out, she had not really, she hadn't taken any, like he asked her if she had taken any martial arts classes or if she carries any like mace or pepper spray or a gun or something like that.

00:02:39.020 Uh, and if, and she doesn't. And so he was trying to understand why, if she truly was that fearful, why she didn't take any mitigating action. And the internet did not like this.

00:02:52.740 And they thought he was cornering her and just played a, like a cheap trick.

00:02:59.040 Yeah. They, they essentially like, it was, it was very obvious that these people didn't have any experience with Peter Bogosian or, or understanding of how he uses the Socratic method.

00:03:08.680 And all of his discussions to get to people's root causes of their belief. Uh, and, and yeah, they just like the radical feminists just jumped all over him.

00:03:20.320 We, we got into some discussions on Twitter with, with, um, Peter and, and, and some, um, and Matt Thornton, largely women. Um, but Matt Thornton was, was commenting too, because he, he referenced Matt Thornton.

00:03:32.740 Uh, Matt Thornton, of course, being the, the founder of straight blast gym, I think it's called straight blast gym, SBG. Uh, one of the first, uh, jujitsu gyms in North America.

00:03:42.860 He trained directly with the Gracie brothers. So he's very well known. He wrote a book last year.

00:03:48.620 He released a book last year called the gift of violence. Great book. Um, and, uh, basically he was talking about how, you know, so if, if I were to summarize as charitably as possible, the radical feminist, uh, response to Peter's line of questioning to, to Cara, it's that.

00:04:09.320 Uh, no matter what a woman is at such a disadvantage in a physical confrontation with a man that the best course of action would not ever be, uh, any self-defense knowledge or any, any aggressive action with pepper spray or mace, but would be to, uh, employ other methods of deterrence, such as trying to not aggravate and trying to not exacerbate a situation.

00:04:36.000 Uh, it's almost like these are mutually.

00:04:39.320 Exclusive things.

00:04:41.260 Yeah. Yeah. And there's, they're speaking like of an either, or that's right. That's right. And, and, and I'm, I'm going to play some clips from a video from a recent podcast that he did, uh, with, uh, with Julie Bindell, uh, and she's another, almost, it was a, almost not a direct followup, but they touched on a lot of those things of that original podcast.

00:05:01.860 Yes.

00:05:02.300 And some of the, some of the, some of the inflammation that happened after kind of set the stage for this conversation.

00:05:10.920 Well, and the, and, and one of the points too, that, that both Peter and, and Matt Thornton, excuse me, had made a lot was that, yes, of course, in any confrontational circumstance, the best option is not to get involved in a physical confrontation.

00:05:26.140 In any sort of heightened situation, uh, potentially dangerous situation where there is the risk of a physical confrontation, the best option is to not engage with it.

00:05:36.760 It's to get away from the danger, run away, call for help, anything, but, and what Peter and Matt and others were, were trying to hammer home is that that's not what anyone is talking about.

00:05:53.440 We're talking about in a situation where physical violence is unavoidable or is currently happening.

00:05:59.420 Isn't it better to be somewhat competent and able to defend yourself in certain ways, you know, certain techniques, certain holds or jabs, or, you know, um, you know, certain moves that you can do to escape and potentially come away with your life where otherwise you might not have been able to.

00:06:19.720 Isn't it better to know that than to not know that?

00:06:23.480 And like you said, it's almost as if they are actually intellectually incapable of understanding that it isn't an either or that there can be two things can be true at the same time.

00:06:35.640 The other, the other really common thing that I saw was that, well, if you say that women should learn how to defend themselves, what you're doing is you're excusing male violence or you're making, or you're victim blaming, or you're victim blaming.

00:06:49.720 Exactly.

00:06:51.160 And so they'll come, they'll come back and say, well, shouldn't we, shouldn't we teach men not to attack women?

00:06:57.340 Yes, you're correct that we should.

00:07:00.720 And also it's still probably a good idea that you learn to defend yourself because there's still always going to be aggressive men.

00:07:08.440 Like it's, it's astounding to me that this is a point that even needs to be debated.

00:07:13.140 But anyway, I'm going to, I'm going to stop talking and I'm going to load this screen here.

00:07:20.100 I have a couple of timestamps and let's go ahead.

00:07:27.400 One is that we're not honest about our problems.

00:07:32.280 So if you were to guess who, do you think that there's a particular demographic responsible, more, let me phrase this.

00:07:41.600 Do you think there's a, this is, I'm so tired right now. 0.75

00:07:44.460 Do you think that there's a particular demographic responsible for punching women in the head? 0.76

00:07:50.880 Men. 0.95

00:07:51.220 Men.

00:07:54.420 Correct.

00:07:55.700 Now, I wish I had one of those sound effects.

00:08:00.260 Now, if you were to get more granular on that, what type of men, do you think the men who punch women in the head have any commonality?

00:08:08.300 Violent men. 0.98

00:08:10.120 Misogynistic men. 0.99

00:08:15.600 Right.

00:08:16.140 Those are all true by definition. 0.99

00:08:18.100 They're bundled into the fact that they punch women in the head. 0.98

00:08:20.500 But do they have any demographic?

00:08:22.960 Do they have a common demographic?

00:08:26.200 Why would I know?

00:08:27.340 There are gangs of men who were maraudering around the underground.

00:08:34.380 I'm just going to pause it there because the reason I started off with this clip is because this is at the point in the interview where I knew that this wasn't going to be an honest discussion. 0.66

00:08:43.140 Because this type of mealy-mouthed, equivocating bullshit of, well, how would I know who these types of men are?

00:08:50.700 She knows exactly who the type of men that Peter is referring to because they're talking about, and they do address it later in the video, and she does finally admit it. 0.98

00:08:58.420 These are Muslim grooming gangs in European countries, primarily made up of Pakistani men, some northern African men. 0.54

00:09:08.320 These are the people who are running. 0.99

00:09:10.900 He was talking about when he said punching women in the head. 0.70

00:09:13.040 This is a thing that was-

00:09:14.020 With that being, that's an increasing problem.

00:09:17.840 If you can look statistically, like the number of incidences have increased over the years, which has correlated to with the number of newcomers who may or may not share the values.

00:09:29.380 So if she's so focused on, well, we just have to teach men to be better, I'm like, well, what happens when people come in that do not have the same values that we have about treating women?

00:09:44.720 Yeah, that's right.

00:09:45.720 Could that be a factor?

00:09:48.360 And or, like, what are you going to do if this is a reality in Europe right now?

00:09:54.720 Yeah.

00:09:55.260 Like, how do you navigate that?

00:09:57.080 Well, and when he was referencing the punching women in the head, that was, if you remember from a few weeks ago in New York, when there was reports of, like, it may have been one or two, like, just random attacks on women.

00:10:11.120 Like, a guy would come out of the alley and punch someone and run away, a woman and run away.

00:10:17.180 That's what he started off with.

00:10:18.400 But this is a broader theme in that he was talking, Boghossian is talking about public attacks on women and grooming gangs that are trafficking in women.

00:10:33.340 And multiple times through this conversation, Julie Bindel attempted to bring it back to a conversation regarding home abuse, like abuse in the home from spouses or relatives or, which we do know statistically is the highest amount of, that is where the highest amount of abuse occurs.

00:10:52.740 But this isn't, they're talking past each other here because this isn't what we're talking about.

00:10:59.080 We're talking about the frightening and rapid increase in these types of public abuse of women that we see as immigration from certain parts of the world that don't respect women and that don't hold the same values that we have enter into our society.

00:11:16.920 Yeah, and there's, well, the conversation bounces a little bit between she's claiming that as a woman, she's so fearful on the street.

00:11:28.180 So she's using that as a daily experience of fear, while simultaneously, anytime Peter brings up this issue of the public element of it, and what would you do to mitigate some of those fears or some of those risks in public?

00:11:44.680 She brings it back to the domestic stats, because the public stats are less useful.

00:11:52.480 Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.

00:11:54.280 Because, of course, and I think she'll say this earlier, you know, she says, like, what use would pepper spray be against, you know, your husband in your house if he's beating you?

00:12:04.080 Yeah, that's right, but that's not what we're talking about here.

00:12:06.640 We're talking about if you're fearful walking alone on a downtown street at night, isn't it better that you have something on you that in a random attempt at an attack, you can do a spray and run, rather than have nothing and have no recourse to have even an attempt at a defense in that sort of situation.

00:12:34.920 And another thing that they don't talk about, and I wish Peter brought this up, because this isn't, like, sometimes the radical feminists will speak about these issues as if they are uniquely a woman's issue. 0.99

00:12:49.360 I am, you know, blessed, if you want to say, to be a rather large man.

00:12:55.760 I'm six feet tall, I'm 220 pounds, I'm a big boy.

00:12:58.720 I've never really felt any certain, any level of, you know, particular fear at night walking around alone, you know, in our downtown or any of our, you know, sort of party streets or anything.

00:13:10.140 Because I know that I'm not particularly vulnerable in that way, because usually if somebody, you know, sees a bigger man, that's not a good target to pick.

00:13:20.500 You know, you'd pick somebody smaller.

00:13:22.080 That said, there are men who walk around, men are far and away the more victims of violent attacks than women, by the numbers.

00:13:35.500 That's not a statistic that feminists like to talk about, but it is true. 1.00

00:13:38.840 It's also the circumstances around that.

00:13:41.220 So you walking on a street and you're just walking your mind in your own business, that's different than if, let's say you spent every weekend at a bar and you were drunk, you're putting yourself at a much higher risk of violence and or situations of that.

00:13:59.080 So if somebody is really afraid of these, um, of this, these kinds of situations, first of all, like doesn't, doesn't matter if you're 200 pounds or a hundred pounds or a man or a woman getting drunk at a random bar is objectively not the safest thing you could do.

00:14:16.820 So if that was a concern, you would, you would pick different avenues of fun and, or you would have, again, basic strategies of like, well, stumbling home, maybe not the best.

00:14:31.340 Like, do you have somebody there who's sober?

00:14:33.500 Do you have somebody like, where's, do you have a plan for where you're going?

00:14:37.360 Are you just randomly ad hoc?

00:14:39.300 Like, like, like there are a lot of ways where you could create potential higher risk for yourself.

00:14:47.500 And that's right.

00:14:48.700 You're not, that's not to blame any of the, the existing victims of like, if some guy has got beat up and he was completely innocent, but like, well, if you don't go to those circumstance, if you don't spend time in those areas, you are less likely.

00:15:04.880 Like, like just statistically speaking, you're less likely to encounter something like that.

00:15:12.000 That's just a basic statistical reality.

00:15:15.940 Yeah.

00:15:16.540 Yeah.

00:15:17.060 And, and what I was, where I was going to go with that too, is that even given those circumstances, not being an obvious target, being, you know, someone who's comfortable being, you know, walking alone at night or whatever the situation you want to say.

00:15:31.660 I still like to have certain things on me.

00:15:34.380 I still carry a flashlight that has a strobe option on it.

00:15:38.500 That's a great deterrent.

00:15:39.500 That's a great non-lethal, non-violent deterrent to have.

00:15:42.580 It's, first of all, it's useful to carry a flashlight on you anyway.

00:15:45.760 Um, and, and, and I like to, I like to, you know, have certain, I have the situational awareness to know if I would ever need to, uh, use or have any sort of, uh, deterrent tools on me to say it in a, in a YouTube friendly way like that.

00:16:06.760 Um, and, and, and, and that, that's the case for anyone.

00:16:11.680 Anyone can be a victim of anything at any time.

00:16:13.720 Is it the, is it the case that, uh, a small drunk woman on the street is probably statistically more likely to be a victim of a violent crime than a big sober man?

00:16:23.140 Yes.

00:16:23.480 But, uh, that doesn't mean that it's victim blaming to tell, to tell either of them that you should probably have your head on a swivel if you're in a bad part of town where there's tweakers.

00:16:35.180 Because there, there is no, there is no amount of, uh, you know, academic feminism that will penetrate the brain of a man who's ODing on meth and wants to, you know, decides that he wants to get into a fight.

00:16:49.580 Like, I'm, I'm just, I'm sorry.

00:16:51.880 That's just, that's just the reality.

00:16:53.380 And it's not, it's not a commentary on men and women.

00:16:56.300 How do you speak rationally in that situation to somebody who does not process rational thoughts?

00:17:02.320 Like it's, you can't just even saying friendly things to somebody who's ODing or in the middle of a, they're having a bad trip.

00:17:11.980 Even just acknowledging them with conversation is enough to like, you don't know what they're thinking.

00:17:19.000 They're having a bad time.

00:17:20.420 You open yourself up.

00:17:21.140 And now you are included in their bad time because you address them.

00:17:25.600 So, so, um, the next portion I've clipped to here is, um, Julie's, uh, initial reaction to Peter's, uh, interview with, uh, with Cara and short discussion on that.

00:17:41.980 Equational awareness first, but, um, the number of people who became enraged at that was fascinating to me.

00:17:52.460 Um, and I think you became enraged at me as well.

00:17:55.900 Uh, or at least, uh, your online behavior was enraged.

00:18:00.380 Reed, pull up that quote from Julie.

00:18:04.760 Uh, can you, yeah, Christ, this man is insufferable.

00:18:08.420 That's me.

00:18:09.180 And so I wanted to, I wanted to ask you about that.

00:18:12.600 So tell me about that.

00:18:14.560 What were you trying to accomplish with that, uh, um, crisis man is insufferable?

00:18:19.580 Uh, oh, I didn't think about what it would accomplish.

00:18:22.160 I tweeted what I thought at the time.

00:18:25.600 Um, I'd watched the interview with Cara.

00:18:29.280 Um, I find Cara very interesting.

00:18:31.240 We don't agree on everything, but we do agree on some things and that they're the most interesting conversations for me.

00:18:36.100 Um, and, uh, yeah, I, I was kind of swept along with it and then all of a sudden, in my view, you changed into what I can only describe as a kind of pound shot Louis Theroux, you know, you became all kind of, oh, I'm fascinated by it.

00:18:51.140 I don't know what that means.

00:18:52.200 Well, so Louis Theroux is his, I mean, you must know his style.

00:18:57.300 Maybe you don't, but, you know, he's, he interviews people in kind of interesting and quirky situations, people living in extremities perhaps.

00:19:08.440 And he kind of has this, oh, I'm really, really puzzled by this.

00:19:12.620 I need to understand this.

00:19:13.920 And it's kind of a ruse.

00:19:15.960 And I, I, in, in my view, I saw you change into this kind of, rather than testing ideas and maybe playing devil's advocate, doing your job as a philosopher.

00:19:25.480 And as someone who, who, um, you know, wants to tease out the kind of interesting bits, all of a sudden, it seemed to become quite personal.

00:19:36.100 And I have quite a good antenna for this.

00:19:40.820 And you said something like, to Cara, why do some women place themselves in position of impotency in the world? 0.99

00:19:49.400 Why would they not take steps?

00:19:51.500 You know, if, if you don't like guns, get pepper spray.

00:19:55.000 You know, you don't have to get a black belt.

00:19:57.160 You can get a blue belt.

00:19:58.040 You can take steps to, to hope that you can get out of the bathroom, uh, so that no sexual predator, um, you know, can do this to you.

00:20:06.320 What's the point of hoping the manager will come?

00:20:08.400 What's the point in hoping that the Supreme Court will pass a law?

00:20:11.420 It was, it was kind of very, it felt very aggressive and personal.

00:20:15.960 Now, Cara can look after herself. 0.81

00:20:18.420 She doesn't need me to be saying this.

00:20:20.100 The reason why I took issue with it is because it kind of reminded me of all of the cases that I've sat through in court.

00:20:27.900 In the US, in the UK and elsewhere, where women are held responsible for the violence that they encounter. 0.87

00:20:36.600 Women in domestic violence relationships are asked, why didn't you leave? 1.00

00:20:40.760 Women who were raped are asked, why didn't you fight him off? 1.00

00:20:43.100 Now, this is not to say that self-defense doesn't have its place, but your tone was absolutely without question, in my view.

00:20:53.220 Victim blaming.

00:20:54.320 You were scratching your head in bemusement.

00:20:56.640 You said it was a personal thing, that you might cut it out, that you needed to know for you.

00:21:01.980 Of course, it wasn't edited out.

00:21:03.440 It was left in, which I'm glad about.

00:21:05.560 And you kept saying, why wouldn't you increase your confidence to decrease the likelihood if you found yourself in that situation?

00:21:13.000 And you were very much speaking from yourself as a man who moves through the world without feeling, without having that feeling of always having to be hypervigilant.

00:21:21.620 Now, you and I have spoken about this before.

00:21:23.900 I don't like identity politics.

00:21:25.840 I really don't.

00:21:27.160 But being a woman isn't an identity. 0.99

00:21:29.460 Being a girl in this society isn't an identity.

00:21:32.920 And so I'm just saying to you what pissed me right off was you just put yourself as a man in the shoes of a woman, which you can never do, because you don't have to walk through the world hypervigilant.

00:21:49.100 And so it was just so inappropriate.

00:21:54.500 And I think you put her on the spot to the point of where, in my view, she started to backtrack in a way that possibly she wouldn't have done had you not done that whole faux kind of concern about why wouldn't she?

00:22:11.320 And, yeah.

00:22:13.660 I'm just going to pause it there.

00:22:15.700 That was kind of a long section.

00:22:17.340 But the one thing I wanted to point out before I ask your thought on that is that we went in a span of three minutes there from Cara is exceptional and she doesn't need me to say anything for her.

00:22:30.760 She can hold up her on her own to one simple line of questioning was enough to, well, she had to backtrack from her point because she was so intimidated by your tone or your verbiage or something.

00:22:44.320 So what is it?

00:22:45.640 Is she a strong woman who can hold her own point?

00:22:47.900 Or is she a shrinking violet that the moment a man steps onto her stage and challenges her, she has to, out of fear for her own, you know, potential safety, then she has to modify her point to appease him.

00:23:02.040 Yeah, the logical consistency is not there with Julie Bindle.

00:23:08.140 I noticed three kind of, not pillars, but it's like she assumed motive at first and this is a tactic of kind of the very progressive or very leftist way of like you.

00:23:29.440 Wait till you see the next clip.

00:23:30.520 You assume bad motive and then you say, it reminds me of these bad things of people saying something like, so now you have this like a guilt by association kind of thing.

00:23:46.700 The Peter, he wasn't in any of those kind of court proceedings or anything like all those other examples have nothing to do with this.

00:23:55.220 She just, I thought the tone reminded her of that and that's a, her problem.

00:24:00.580 That's not a Peter problem.

00:24:02.280 Like, so, and then again, misrepresents his point and doesn't actually address the meat of the argument because she talks about the victim blaming.

00:24:17.600 And so kind of frustrating to listen to you.

00:24:20.980 Fascinating at the same time.

00:24:22.800 Very frustrating.

00:24:23.500 Very fascinating.

00:24:24.220 Uh, this, this next section I have, I have, uh, timestamped here from 29.19 to 32.11.

00:24:30.940 So these are, it's a, this is a three minute section here I want to play.

00:24:34.580 Um, and to your, to your first comment about what she was assuming Peter's motives were, uh, check this out.

00:24:42.260 For a, uh, very, uh, straw-yist of straw men.

00:24:46.260 You started doing that kind of head-scratching puzzled look, um, as to, you know, help me understand this. 0.99

00:24:52.800 And you, I think, probably expected to end up with a woman saying, oh God, I have been really stupid, haven't I? 0.99

00:25:04.080 I didn't think of that. 0.96

00:25:05.640 I should just have learned self-defense or carry a gun or pepper spray and no man could get me in the, in the bathroom. 1.00

00:25:12.640 So you had that tone and also that you were saying things like, I would wear a bulletproof vest if I thought there was any risk of being fired at. 0.99

00:25:21.920 And yeah, okay, we get that, but what you don't get is that being a war reporter, for example, so being a war reporter and wearing a bulletproof vest is, you would be an absolute certified idiot to not do that. 0.99

00:25:38.920 Wholly irresponsible. 0.98

00:25:40.220 For women, what you have to understand is, this is a daily reality. 1.00

00:25:47.580 Now, we would be sent mad if we were to be vigilant, such as the war reporter during that time when he or she is reporting where the bullets are being fired.

00:25:58.720 That reporter then, if they're lucky, goes back into their hotel room, puts Netflix on and has a stiff whiskey, right?

00:26:05.300 So for women, we are at risk, particularly when we're the most relaxed, when we've had a few drinks, when we get in the back of a cab, when we're at home with our male loved ones, we're at risk.

00:26:19.860 If we were to sit there thinking about doing some kind of self-defense move, we would be sent mad.

00:26:30.140 We need to actually put it out of our heads as much as we possibly can, because as some women will say, depending on which communities and how vulnerable they are, it's like being under siege. 0.51

00:26:42.420 So you cannot be constantly vigilant.

00:26:45.700 You cannot walk around the streets holding a bunch of keys between your fingers.

00:26:50.060 You cannot be holding pepper spray in states in the US where guns are legal to own your own firearms, such as Nevada, for example.

00:27:01.700 Murders of women by men and rapes of women by men are the highest across the US.

00:27:08.860 Guns are not the answer.

00:27:10.540 And so it just felt to me like you were putting this woman on the spot in a way, in a manner that was different from your other line of questioning, which felt much more reciprocal.

00:27:21.420 And she was on the back foot and she shouldn't have been because she shouldn't have had to explain to you what it feels like, which is pretty impossible to be constantly under threat.

00:27:32.940 And to have to put that aside in order to live as normal and relaxed and happier life as possible.

00:27:40.540 There's some contradictions.

00:27:44.320 Thoughts on that?

00:27:45.720 No, you don't say.

00:27:48.060 So the threat is so dire that at every point they are at siege, but because they're at siege, they have to not think about it.

00:28:02.940 And any additional deterrent methods would be burning them out and creating more stress and would remind them of the threat.

00:28:13.100 Therefore, ignoring the threat is easier.

00:28:17.220 And as a man, Peter cannot understand.

00:28:20.720 He cannot possibly put himself in that kind of in that mindset to understand what she is going through.

00:28:28.980 I truly believe that he can't understand that because that is such a fundamentally illogical and and just it's it's such a like a lazy intellectually lazy point.

00:28:41.440 Like, first of all, like you say, it's a contradiction because you're you're suggesting that, you know, the the the the women are so strong and they have to put up with so much and they have to do the the actually do take steps to, you know, to to mitigate in ways that are nonviolent.

00:29:01.720 But doing any other steps that would be asking too much of them, because they're because it's just, you know, the the burnout that would occur because of that.

00:29:11.960 It's it's silly. 0.72

00:29:13.320 It's meaningless.

00:29:14.120 That doesn't mean anything.

00:29:16.300 But it's it's also just it to me.

00:29:19.940 And I don't know if I'm being uncharitable because I just fundamentally dislike this woman so much from how she's.

00:29:26.320 She just came on Peter's podcast and not not resonating with you.

00:29:30.880 No, no, no, I don't like her, but like I kind of lost my train of thought here, but I'll you you take it over because that's that'll that's what will boil my comments on this section down to.

00:29:45.500 I just don't don't quite like her.

00:29:47.940 Yeah, the her points do not accurately reflect Peter's position.

00:29:54.240 She assumes motives.

00:29:55.780 She assumes he's playing a cheap trick.

00:29:58.640 And then the even the analogy she didn't like earlier in the podcast, he made an analogy of like, well, if he stepped out of his house and there is a nine out of 10 chance of an elephant stampede running over him, he would not leave his house.

00:30:15.860 Like he was trying to get out of the way, some kind of let it be the bulletproof vest or some kind of thing where if the threat level is that high.

00:30:25.960 You.

00:30:26.440 You kind of have to take ownership over it, and this is a fundamental principle that relates to our discussions about before we're kind of like, well, we didn't directly say it, but we're kind of asking what role?

00:30:41.720 Well, what level of responsibility do people have individuals versus the state around them and ultimately it doesn't matter how much the world is controlled around you.

00:30:56.160 There's still that uncontrollable nature of people making decisions that are outside of the interest of you or that people, somebody may choose to violate your space.

00:31:08.240 They may do something terrible.

00:31:10.580 And ultimately, you are 100 percent responsible for what you can do for yourself.

00:31:18.180 And either you take as much of that responsibility as you can, understanding the risks.

00:31:24.620 And if you believe a risk is high, you take whatever level of responsibility to navigate that and be OK with it, or you defer responsibility and you hide from it or you downplay the risk or you make excuses like either you accept reality or you don't like this is what it comes down to.

00:31:48.180 That's right.

00:31:48.660 And that kind of reminds me of what I what I think I was going to say at a kind of later on in this in this interview. 0.89

00:31:55.200 She she says she thinks she delivers a pretty sweet burn by saying, you know, I know that you're not a stupid man, Peter, but you are you're at a dangerous risk of sounding like it, you know, for him asking another clarifying question, basically.

00:32:08.840 And and what I think her fundamental problem is, is that I know she as well is not a stupid person, but she is intentionally ignoring the, you know, the philosophical distinction of ought versus is like, is it would it be a better world? 0.66

00:32:29.300 Where no one at any given time had to worry about their physical safety in any circumstance?

00:32:35.100 Yes, of course, that would be for everyone.

00:32:36.940 It would be lovely if that were the case, but it isn't the case.

00:32:41.240 And so because of that reality, like you say, we have a couple of choices.

00:32:46.600 You can go through life believing that, you know, any any steps that you take to potentially protect your own safety is a is a failure of society.

00:32:56.380 And it's a you know, it's it's a you know, it's not something that I should ever have to worry about because, you know, people should just be better and men should just be better.

00:33:05.540 And and and we should have we should stamp it out at the source so that we never have to worry.

00:33:09.960 I'm afraid that it isn't like that.

00:33:12.800 And so you can't you can't at the same time recognize that reality and and also refuse to take any steps.

00:33:21.040 To as I've said a couple of times to mitigate that reality, you know what I mean?

00:33:25.840 Yeah, and and again, not an either or and these things are not like well, awareness is one of them.

00:33:34.400 But again, if you feel that far threatened or.

00:33:39.960 Would you just wouldn't you include more steps like wouldn't the steps of mitigation and awareness scale up with the perceived level of threat?

00:33:53.200 And that's where she constantly discounts as if somebody watches through this, Peter advocates for all these other deterrents and or situational awareness and or talking somebody down like he doesn't discount them.

00:34:09.960 It's not like he's suggesting that somebody just punches their way out of every situation.

00:34:16.280 But if it really came to it.

00:34:19.500 That last line of defense, like no other option, either you.

00:34:24.640 Do something or you don't do something like.

00:34:29.340 If something has a 10 percent better outcome.

00:34:32.940 You would do it.

00:34:33.960 You would you would include that like wouldn't that be a net benefit.

00:34:39.040 We did think during some of our discussions on Twitter, we did make the analogy of like.

00:34:45.760 Well, one of the arguments is that like, oh, if you have a weapon or if you have any form of deterrence, then it may anger the person and you might be subjected to more violence.

00:34:56.940 And the thing is, in that situation, you're already subjected to.

00:35:01.320 Like the sky's the limit.

00:35:02.640 If there's nothing stopping them, then you don't know what they'll do.

00:35:05.660 So you're subjected to any level of violence anyways.

00:35:09.320 So you literally have no other recourse but to defend yourself and try to escape.

00:35:14.840 But if you take that same logic to, well, you should keep your doors unlocked because a robber busting into your home might be upset if an alarm goes off or they might be upset that they have to break through the door.

00:35:29.940 Like that's a lot of efforts and like you wouldn't want to anger them.

00:35:35.780 Therefore, why not just unlock your doors and make it easy for them?

00:35:41.460 Yeah.

00:35:41.860 Yeah, that's right.

00:35:42.560 Well, and this was part of our discussion with one individual on Twitter.

00:35:48.900 The thread kind of goes a little bit further up, but essentially it's more strawmanning that, you know, Peter was suggesting that, you know, that male violence isn't a threat because, you know, that would be the only reason why you wouldn't prepare for it.

00:36:04.220 But, and so, so not Betty okay okay on Twitter says that women do prepare for male violence by having avoidance strategies drilled into us from the time that we can walk.

00:36:17.940 And Matt Thornton says that that's a very important aspect, one of several.

00:36:21.800 So, she says, so claiming we haven't prepared to mitigate male violence is false.

00:36:27.080 I said, you suggested one mitigation strategy, avoidance.

00:36:32.260 Peter suggested another, training in a martial art like jiu-jitsu.

00:36:35.780 And that that's it.

00:36:36.980 And, you know, that I was, I asked her why she's fundamentally unable to accept that undertaking a positive rather than a negative mitigation strategy would also be effective.

00:36:45.380 So, this response was one that we saw a lot of, not all women have the time, finances, access, or physical ability to take a martial art, so this comes off as victim blaming.

00:36:58.940 And Thornton, Matt Thornton said, probably the best line of any of this discussion, because all women can't doesn't mean many shouldn't. 0.99

00:37:07.320 Not everyone can learn to swim, but that doesn't mean we should stop suggesting others should learn.

00:37:11.420 And it certainly doesn't mean that when someone suggests people should learn to swim, they are victim blaming people who have drowned in the past.

00:37:19.180 So, I thought that was a really good reply.

00:37:22.400 And that kind of, I had more of that video to show, but I've, I showed enough and we're at an hour and a half here.

00:37:28.880 And then the brilliant reply under of like, water doesn't specifically seek out women. 0.97

00:37:33.820 And you're like, unable, unable to grasp these analogies for what they are.

00:37:41.420 Yeah, there was a certain point where we kind of had to give up a little bit because it was, the message was not going through.

00:37:48.140 It is a, you know, you said it, it's a, it's a, it's an inability to.

00:37:52.340 Is versus ought.

00:37:53.000 Yeah, and, and, and, and the, the fact that you can have, it isn't a, it isn't a, a one or the other situation.

00:38:03.140 You can, at the same time that you absolutely should be teaching men from an early age to respect women, respect everyone.

00:38:11.400 But I believe, you know, if it's sexist or not, I don't particularly care that men should be particularly concerned with the, with how they treat women.

00:38:21.040 Because in general, women are, uh, more vulnerable to us than we are to them. 1.00

00:38:27.200 So that, that creates a different dynamic that I believe that men should be more sensitive to.

00:38:33.380 That can be true.

00:38:34.740 And it can still also be true that you should still have some ability to defend yourself in a situation where there is no other option.

00:38:43.700 Well, it can't be a bad thing.

00:38:45.020 It can never be a bad thing to be more competent than less competent, right?

00:38:49.000 Yeah.

00:38:49.380 The, there's the individual level.

00:38:52.260 There's also like having people speak up and stand up for each other, um, which is actively being deterred from the progressive left.

00:39:05.080 Um, you have your Daniel Perry situation of an, somebody trying to defend others from a dangerous individual being punished by the full, like being punished more than these criminals get punished when something goes, goes wrong.

00:39:21.280 Um, and is that, was that the Marine on the, on the subway?

00:39:24.260 Yeah, that was the Marine who like had a headlock and, but again, when you have somebody drugged up and, or it's things happen, but there are other cases of somebody sticking their neck out to try to protect other individuals.

00:39:43.940 And getting prosecuted after, if, if, if they're only advocating for like, well, you just got to tell, tell men to do better.

00:39:53.300 I'm like, well, some will not listen because there are many disagreeable people.

00:39:59.380 There's psychotic people.

00:40:00.940 There are people that are in and out of, well, you don't, wouldn't you also have a concern of like, well, this catch and release kind of strategies of, well, criminals that have been like.

00:40:14.920 If you look at some of these stats, even Vancouver, there's for like random little break-ins and, or like you can see one individual having in a year, a hundred different encounters with the police and not being locked up and preventing that harm.

00:40:29.980 So even if you were going over low hanging for you to address, well, repeat offenders with a list that high, if you took them off the streets, they, the risk would go down because they're committing the majority of the crimes.

00:40:46.180 So reforming that aspect and you don't see any, these same people that are advocating to just tell men to do better also seem to believe sometimes in just this catch and release.

00:40:58.260 Like, well, we got to rehabilitate.

00:40:59.980 We got to, we can't, can't keep them locked up for too long because they'll just be worse.

00:41:04.860 Like they're already bad.

00:41:05.940 They're already in a state where they're committing a hundred crimes in a year.

00:41:10.160 So like, yeah, well, and, and, and I know that Julie Bindle would be the same, would be the same type of person to make that kind of argument because of at the very beginning of the conversation, how it took.

00:41:21.920 So long for her to, to say out loud who it was, who, who were the majority of the people committing these crimes, because she may say that she doesn't like identity politics, but the way that she speaks and the way that she formulates her arguments suggests that she is taking identity politics into account when she makes these, when she makes her mind up, her mind up about things.

00:41:44.820 And it's, uh, it's to the detriment of the, of the seriousness that one can, can really take.

00:41:49.740 She was like careful not to give the wrong conclusion.

00:41:54.140 Yeah, that's right.

00:41:55.420 It's like, it's, it's a, you have the belief structure and then you're like, well, if the data is racist, then we can't, we can't talk about the data.

00:42:04.980 Same thing.

00:42:05.320 Like they train, I remember seeing, see if we pull this up at some point, they trained the AI on a bunch of scientific studies and then it gave racist results.

00:42:16.380 So they had to shut it down and we're like, you know, like if the data is like, is the data racist or like the AI is not racist.

00:42:24.780 It's just, you're, you fed it the certain results.

00:42:29.060 So like you fed it data and you didn't give it a social enough of a social justice filter.

00:42:34.760 Yep.

00:42:35.200 So at some point you gotta, at some point we've got to have like real discussions outside of like, we have to make sure my one note on this is the overcorrection can be worse.

00:42:51.760 And we have to be very careful on not blanket demonization of, so not all people who enter Canada who have immigrated in the last five years will be the same kind of personalities, the same kind of, you have a whole range of people.

00:43:11.200 So you can't, even as we're seeing an increase of like some of these, some of these issues, we can't just, we can't go on a witch hunt.

00:43:22.920 We can't go, we can't paint everybody with the same brush.

00:43:27.820 And I think any calls for like mass deportations, like without any due process, like we're the, we're going backwards if we're going to be at that point, but we should at least pause and then reevaluate.

00:43:44.160 And, or like it, it's not wrong to say like, well, maybe a good background check is a smart idea before letting anybody in as a permanent resident.

00:43:54.520 And if somebody has something outstanding in another country, maybe we should bump them to the lower list, or maybe we should be like very diligent about these, like, like that would be addressing some things from the source.

00:44:10.420 If, if, if in Europe right now, if these random attacks are increasing or like the, you have countries like Denmark, who at one point where it was 99% of one demographic, and now they have a mixed demographic and the crimes and the attacks are not coming from the demographic that used to, it's from a new demographic.

00:44:32.960 So, well, and, and that's, it's a, it's an excellent point.

00:44:38.240 And it's something that, um, it's actually, uh, it's, it's surprising to me that more people don't see this, but it's actually, it's actually more racist to believe that we can't talk about these things that we, we just notice with our own eyes. 0.56

00:44:55.460 Um, for fear of people extrapolating that to mean that when I say that statistically in England, uh, the, the, the most public female, uh, abuse, uh, and rape and beatings are, are happening from Pakistani Muslims. 0.98

00:45:17.460 Uh, as a fact, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a cold statistic to then assume that, well, well, what you are saying is that all Pakistani men are Muslim rapists and human traffickers. 0.97

00:45:31.140 Well, that isn't what I'm saying. 0.71

00:45:32.960 So it's of course important to recognize that the, the overwhelming majority of people from any place on earth are good, decent people who don't do these things.

00:45:44.460 But the fact still remains that there are places in the world that are well behind the West in their treatment of women and their treatment of minorities of, of, uh, different alternative sexualities and lifestyles.

00:45:57.600 And they have not caught up to us in the West.

00:46:00.040 And when they come here, those particular, those, that small minority of people, if you import enough of them, of course, you're going to run into the ones who do behave in this way and who do act in this very destructive and disgusting manner.

00:46:15.240 So noticing it doesn't mean that you're noticing that you're, that you're making a blanket blanket statement, nor does it mean that it's appropriate in any way to demonize anyone from anywhere who hasn't done anything wrong.

00:46:27.960 So thank you for bringing up that point.

00:46:31.100 Yeah.

00:46:31.500 I think we're both on the same page with that.

00:46:32.980 Keep that balance.

00:46:33.280 So, yeah.

00:46:34.160 Of course.

00:46:35.280 And, um, well, thanks so much as always, James.

00:46:38.420 I, I, I really appreciate your, your, uh, your thoughtful commentary on all this stuff.

00:46:42.340 And, and, uh, always a pleasure to, to bounce ideas back and forth with you and, and love these chats.

00:46:47.920 And thank you everyone who's watching.

00:46:51.480 Yeah.

00:46:51.980 Yeah.

00:46:52.160 Well, you know, we've, we've sort of been, uh, we've been, been blessed to have some, some good views and hits and likes in our few of our videos recently.

00:47:00.160 And we really appreciate that.

00:47:01.320 And, and, uh, thanks everyone for watching and commenting.

00:47:04.180 Uh, even, even those, you know, who are commenting, who, who think that we're so wrong about everything and, and, and have no idea what we're talking about.

00:47:11.580 We like that too.

00:47:12.320 Cause it, I want to know how we're wrong.

00:47:15.040 Yeah, exactly.

00:47:16.000 I, I, I love it.

00:47:16.940 So, uh, keep commenting and liking and, and thank you for everyone to, or who is watching and, uh, we'll, we'll see you in about a week.

00:47:24.560 All right.

00:47:25.420 See you in the next one.

00:47:27.120 Cheers.

00:47:27.440 Cheers.

The Critical Compass Podcast - May 23, 2024

Boghossian vs. Bindel - Self-Defence or Victim-Blaming？｜ A Critical Compass Discussion

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